


Picture Book

by quartetship



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Inspired by Art, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 03:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10982805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartetship/pseuds/quartetship
Summary: ["Open your eyes," he whispers.]Two boys, one camera phone, and a lifetime of happiness.





	Picture Book

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some beautiful artwork - [here](https://twitter.com/astronautart/status/866573751982411776) and [here](https://twitter.com/astronautart/status/866767912945799168) \- by the fabulously talented [astronautart](https://twitter.com/astronautart)! 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> \--

From the moment they began talking with any sort of regularity, Keith has taken photos of Lance. There are pictures of the two of them goofing off with other friends, archived snaps of them on the first few days that they spent time together alone, and more than a few images from the day Lance asked Keith on their first, real date. 

Keith keeps all of them, careful to back them up at every chance so as not to lose a single one. 

In all his years, Keith has never seen someone as photogenic as Lance. It isn't that he tries, really. It's almost infuriating how organic his good looks are, how flawless he looks, effortlessly. Keith can't complain, especially now that Lance is his boyfriend, but he certainly does think about it a lot. 

He still takes pictures of him, every day they're together. 

Lance is breathtaking in every light. Keith has often wondered exactly how his boyfriend hasn't been snatched up by some big city modeling agency. It's not hard to imagine him being paraded out in front of hundreds of flashbulbs and millions of eyes, selling whatever product they could think to attach his name to. He has that much magnetism, that much charm. It's entirely natural. 

Somehow, though, he is just as well suited to the small town life they lead together. Though Lance is beautiful enough to be on big screens, he looks just as good on the small ones that Keith saves his photos on. He thinks perhaps Lance is more comfortable behind a lens that size, too. At least he seems to be. 

“You've got to stop laughing,” Keith says, though there is laughter in his own voice as well. From where he is sitting - or perched, really, at the end of Lance's bed - there's no easy way to capture the shots he wants. He pulls at Lance's long, bare legs to straighten them out, crawling up the bed and up his body. 

“You're making me laugh, though!” Lance accuses. He lets Keith settle on his hips, hands lazily grabbing for Keith's sides to steady him. He bites his lip to keep from laughing again, but it's not much help. 

Keith rolls his eyes, trying not to smile at the sound of his snorting. 

“I just want a couple where your eyes are open, at least,” he sighs, tapping the screen of his phone. He turns it around to show Lance the photos he's taken so far, nearly all of them featuring Lance's infectious laugh. He'll keep them of course - all of them. Unfortunately, Lance knows as much. 

“Are you saying you don't like these?” he asks, poking at Keith's screen. “Guess I'll just delete ‘em all, then.” 

Keith snatches his phone back before Lance has time. 

“That's not what I mean and you know it,” he says flatly. Sometimes loving a man who knows his own charm is difficult. “I just want something specific.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “I thought the  _ shirt _ was specific.” He tugs at the collar, raising it enough to bite at playfully, making a show of inhaling the scent of it. It's one of Keith's shirts, nothing more than a nondescript, black v-neck, but on Lance, it looks like something out of a clothing ad. 

Keith sighs, knowing he doesn't have much in the way of a comeback for that one. “Yeah, well. It was,” he says. “It is. I just. I wanna take pictures of you. Not just because you're wearing my clothes.” 

“Well if it's any consolation, I do understand the appeal,” Lance grins, far too wide and bright for Keith's heart to take. Lance looks him over, one hand coming to rest on Keith's hip as he does. “You look pretty cute in mine.” 

Although Keith isn't so sure of the truth of that statement, he certainly does feel good in Lance's shirt. Something about being wrapped in Lance's scent makes him feel safe, comfortable; he shifts in Lance's lap, laughing off the compliment. 

“Yeah, alright. Look, just let me have thirty seconds of serious Lance, okay?” he asks, smiling in spite of himself. “Then you can act like a dumbass all you want to.” 

“You enchant me, babe,” Lance chuckles, hand falling back onto the pillow beside him. If Keith weren't so singularly focused on the task at hand, he would lay his phone aside and pin Lance's wrists where they've fallen, holding him down for a shower of kisses. It's the kind of softness only Lance can inspire in him, and Keith tries to control the fondness playing across his features as he rolls his eyes. 

Later, he promises himself. In the meantime, he taps the screen of his camera to bring his boyfriend's face into focus. 

Lance, to his credit, tries to do as he's asked. When he can't seem to wipe the wolfish grin from his face, he hides it instead, lifting the collar of the shirt to cover his mouth and nose. Keith can hear him inhale deeply, and knowing that it's to linger in his scent - to breathe him in - clenches at his heart in a way he wishes would never end. Lance's eyes flutter closed, and Keith huffs a soft, breathy laugh through his nose. 

“Open your eyes,” he whispers, words sounding more like a prayer than a command. Lance does as he's told, and his eyes open as they closed, shuttering until they're wide and bright, looking up at Keith and Keith alone. 

The tightness returns to Keith's chest as he taps the shutter button and captures half a dozen photos in a row. 

This is the shot he finds himself studying later, the image that he thinks he could spend a lifetime looking at without growing bored. It is Lance, in all of his spellbinding beauty, looking up like he's seeing the wonder of the sky. Its splendor reflects in his eyes, bright and blue and flawless as they sparkle in the muted light around him. His skin is smooth and dark and gorgeous, framing the expression half hidden beneath the cloth over his face perfectly. A slender hand is curled over the collar of the shirt and looking at the photo, Keith feels the urge to take it and hold it in his own. 

It's ridiculous, the allure radiating from his screen as he flips through the photos that night. A beam of sunlight falls perfectly across Lance's face, like the angels themselves want to highlight just how lovely he is. Perhaps the thing that affects him the most is that the look in those beautiful blue eyes is not meant for any natural wonder, any otherworldly entity. That look of reverent tenderness is for Keith, not some coached pose for a camera, but rather an emotion that Lance couldn't help but to exude. 

Keith holds the phone close to his chest as he falls asleep in his own bed that night, dreaming of the day he will share one with Lance. 

\--

Years go by, and they change the look of Lance's face. 

Keith loves it, still. More and more, every day. It's the face he sees when he takes his wedding vows, the face he kisses when they find out they're eligible to adopt children, and the face he looks at every night with a soft, smitten smile before falling asleep. Lance's features may change over time, little by little as the years fly by, but two things always seem to remain the same.

Lance's eyes are just as lovely as they were the afternoon Keith took that photo, and Keith still loves them, just as much. 

The photo lives in many places now, just as every shot Keith has ever labored to preserve. There is a copy on half a dozen devices throughout their home, should something ever happen to the other five. Keith's favorite place to view the image is a digital photo book Lance made for him nearly a decade earlier, which meticulous care has kept working and pristine. 

Keith flips through it on occasion with their children, now both grown and gone away. 

Whenever the family gathers together, they look through Keith's pictures and let him and Lance tell the stories behind each one. Whenever they land on that single, beautiful photograph, Lance seems short for words, barely able to recall why it was taken in the first place. Keith keeps most of the story for himself, telling the others that Lance was just too pretty that day not to capture on film. 

The truth is something more special. The truth is that in that small, candid moment, Keith was reminded of exactly who and what Lance was. He was reminded that while Lance was enchanting enough to have had a career in film or on stage, he only wanted the life he had; he only desired to be a star in the eyes of the man who loved him. The truth is Keith remembers every tiny detail of the day he took that photograph, and he keeps it close to his heart, as he always, _always_ has. 


End file.
